GOOGLE DOODLE TODAY ON JULY 18: Today’s Google Doodle celebrates what would have been the 112th birthday of Oskar Sala, an innovative electronic music composer and physicist. Recognized for producing sound effects on a musical instrument called a mixture-trautonium, Salas electrified the worlds of television, radio and film.
Born in Greiz, Germany, in 1910, Sala was immersed in music from birth. His mother was a singer and his father was an ophthalmologist with musical talent. At the age of 14, Sala started making compositions and songs for instruments such as violin and piano.
When Sala first heard a device called the trautonium, he became fascinated by the sound possibilities and the technology the instrument offered. His life mission became to master the trautonium and develop it further, which inspired his studies of physics and composition at school.
This new focus led Sala to develop his own instrument, the mixture-trautonium. Trained as a composer and electrical engineer, he created electronic music that set his style apart from others. The architecture of the mixture-trautonium is so unique that it was able to play multiple sounds or voices simultaneously.
From behind the door of a recording studio, Sala composed music pieces and sound effects for many television, radio and film productions, such as Rosemary (1959) and The Birds (1962). The instrument made sounds such as bird screeching, hammering and the slamming of doors and windows.
Sala received several awards for his work – he gave many interviews, met numerous artists and was honored in radio broadcasts and films. In 1995 he donated his original mixture of trautonium to the German Museum of Contemporary Technology.
Sala also built the Quartett-Trautonium, Concert Trautonium and the Volkstrautonium. His efforts in electronic music opened up the field of subharmonics. With his dedication and creative energy, he became a one-man orchestra.
CLICK HERE to learn about the life and work of German physicist, composer and pioneer of electronic music, Oskar Sala, with Google Arts & Culture.
GOOGLE DOODLE: ON THIS DAY
On July 12, Google Doodle celebrated the deepest infrared image of the universe ever captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope — also known as the JWST or Webb — a scientific phenomenon and one of mankind’s greatest engineering feats.
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